Why I Write More About Lucy Than Jack
Jack always tries to slack off in the morning because he thinks I’ll offer to give him a ride if he’s late. I won’t, though. The bus stop is less than half a mile away and walking there and back is the only exercise he gets. Plus I have that clichéd grandpa thing about how I walked to school in Michigan and froze my balls off and got attacked by wild dogs, which I did. And that’s putting it mildly. They were more like wolves. Anyway, I’m not giving little dude a ride.
I ask myself why. Why am I so adamant about not giving him a ride? Is there a part of me that likes to make him suffer? That’s what we do on blogs, right? Get really fucking honest with ourselves. We look ourselves in the mirror without flinching and get super fucking honest. Okay fine. Yes. I love the rush of power that accompanies the refusal of rides. Grisly. I know. But it’s my blog. And this is my truth.
So this morning he was bitching (stalling) about his backpack and you know what? He’s got every right in the world to bitch about that backpack. He looks like a fucking astronaut. No wonder he doesn’t want to walk to school. He’s wearing a big ass astronaut backpack. But if he were an astronaut, he’d have no right to bitch because, you know, zero gravity. I’m easily distracted today. How are you?
Anyway, I’m here to help. That’s what Dads are for (Right? Now I’m not sure. What’s a Dad for?). Anyway, I was trying to help so I say “Can’t you leave some of that stuff in your locker?”. This is a perfectly reasonable question. I wasn’t being a dick or anything. I mean he had a problem. I was trying to help him solve it. So you know what he says to me? Not shit.
Not a single fucking word and, actually, this incident wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it didn’t happen 10 times a day. Which is why I started writing this post. To vent my frustration and grapple with my truth. I think Jack turned stupid.
But no that’s wrong. All the state’s standardized tests indicate that he’s some kind of super genius. So I really don’t get why he suddenly became completely unresponsive. He’s practically dead. He will not answer me. I put a mirror in front of his mouth just to make sure he’s breathing. Poke him with a stick. Shit like that. I don’t know what’s going on.
Drugs? Do you think Jack turned stupid from smoking pot? You’d think that my history of drug use coupled with years of being a drug counselor would give me some kind of advantage in terms of spotting this kind of thing early on, but maybe it all creates a blind spot. Or maybe Jack’s using all his super genius powers to smoke drugs and not get caught. What a total waste of geniosity.
Another digression. If you found pot in your kid’s bedroom, you’d smoke it wouldn’t you? You’d tell your kid that you threw it away but you’d really stash it and smoke it later on and giggle about how you’re smoking your kid’s pot. Me too. I don’t know how we live with the complexity of our truths.
Anyway, I thought diapers were hard. And all that bullshit crying. But Jack’s bringing parenting to a whole new level with all this completely ignoring me and maybe smoking pot. It’s really hard. My Mom used to get frustrated and ask if she was talking to a wall. That’s exactly what it feels like. Like you’re talking to a wall and trying to love it while you hate it. And if anybody quotes that stupid ass Frost poem, I’m deleting your comment.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Reader Comments (44)
I would have to smoke my kid's pot. It would be the best misery laugh ever. "I found this pot...in...her...room! bwahaha" Then I would cry. It's great I already have mental syllabi written out for events like this.
I probably would too, but then I would get all paranoid about my bad parenting skills, eat a whole pie, and watch some really bad television to get my mind off of it all.
Just to add a different perspective...even though it's not fun or funny, I wouldn't . I'm one of those that never has. Too chicken and too anxious (although you could argue that that would help). I can't get my kids to shut up. I'd love a little wall talking. Husband has the opposite problem and I think it's because he bombards them wiyj questions nonstop about every little thing. Try ignoring him. Another moment in Great Parenting!
Frost wrote a poem about pot?
Wile E Coyote was super genius too. He probably put pot in all those black TNT balls because he knew when he lit it,it was going to blow up on himself and he could get high.
Maybe in all of his geniosity he just looks at you and thinks, "what an idiot."
I had the same issue with my 3 year old this morning in the car. She wouldn't respond to anything I was saying. Then I realized that her huge winter coat basically immobilized her entire body and lulled her into a deep sleep. And she was probably smoking pot.
i think this line might have something to do with it:
* My Mom used to get frustrated and ask if she was talking to a wall.*
perhaps he gets off making you frustrated. You know, like you did then and happen to admit now when refusing him rides. is this your Dance, you and J?
an old co-worker once said having kids is like looking in a mirror of yourself with all your flaws and bullshit magnified. i dont have kids yet, and one thing holding me back is just that. the fear of seeing myself, flaws and bs magnified, in my child.
love the post
k
Because you know why? Because they're dicks. They're dicks when they're born and I know for sure that they stay dicks until they're 3 and 51 weeks. I can't speak from experience about them any older than that, but I'm pretty sure they continue to be dicks up until college. And then they're still dicks but they'll want beer money so they'll pretend to be cool. Fucking assholes.
I refuse rides to my mother-who-lives-in-my-basement. I tell her its good exercise to walk herself to where ever she wants to go. She never learned to drive and I tried to teach her and she failed the test 10 times.
But I take my kid to school every day.
I would probably in all "honesty" offer him a ride and then drive him instead an additional half mile further away from the spot and let him out to walk the mile, adding: " I gave you the extra half mile to think about why you don't leave some of that shit you haul around in your locker from now on."
I might even spin out when I pull away.
That isn't honest at all. You know what I would do.
weed is whack dude.
you know this.
I would smoke the pot and then the lack of response wouldn't bother me, probably.
The other day, after a particularly grueling exchange with one of my boys, I had a fantasy, a real visual fantasy IN MY HEAD of being a parent in another decade when literally smacking the shit out of the child would have been customary. I literally IMAGINED his head flipping back by the force of my slap, and it made me feel good. My point being, it's hard, it's damn hard to be a good parent. And you're one.
Mathias does this dead-ass stare when you ask him the most basic of things. It's as if he's using all of HIS super-genius to suss out whether or not he's being lured into a trap.
But on the more innocuous questions, I think it's something different. Mathias' brain, you see, lives 'out there' (*waves arm grandiosely*) and I think maybe it just takes a little bit for him to call it back so that he can process this Earthlanguage bullshit.
Maybe Jack's brain has gone further away lately. Prepubescent rocket boosters and all that.
At Jack's age, complete sentences aren't going to get you anywhere. Just point to the backpack, say "Shit" and then say "Locker." Then just make your face like a lake so he has to contemplate your genius.
God, thank you elizabeth. I do that too. Except then I think about her reaction and fear and pain etc and I feel horrible and twisted and shitty about myself. But I still think about it again the next time.
I love the comments today.
Raising Boys, Steve Biddduph. Explains the wall a bit. It's vg.
Frost didn't write any stupid poems! Take that back!
I wouldn't smoke his pot, but I might sell it to the neighbor.
Good fences make good neighbors. Go ahead, motherfucker.
Frost was a total wanker. I'm leaving Corinne's comment, though, because it was amply antagonistic.
Hmmm. I had never considered the potential bonuses lingering in my future teenagers' bedrooms. Should I give them my hookah from college to encourage them? They are only 2.5 and 4, but I suppose you can never start too early.
He's probably too busy sorting thru 27 smartass comments and at least one anxiety-stricken sincere answer to your question to actually, you know, say anything OUT LOUD. That was my problem, at least. Still is, come to think of it... So yes, I will definitely be smoking my kid's pot.
Pot gives me paranoia and panic attacks. You should be so lucky.
Remember how shit school is. Maybe he just wants a little break from it all.
Tell him fuck school, you just want him to take a day off and play some music with you...
Then maybe he'll reveal where his stash is.
With all do respect and possible pot smoking aside, he doesn't respond because little, if anything you say deserves a response. Be glad he doesn't say what he's thinking which is "obviously, if I didn't NEED all of this shit at home AND at school, I would leave some of it in my locker, you sadistic idiot. Just have some fucking compassion and give me a ride to school."
i have a feeling it would be some really bad weed... if not oregano or something.
Hey Liz. Suck my dick.
You think they're looking at you, but really they're looking through you, and they're not hearing your voice but rather the siren song of whatever bit of fatty acid is bubbling and frothing in the depths of their imaginations. If you look closely, you can see behind their eyes, those little cogs and fly-wheels spinning incessantly, gears grinding...until they blink, and they're back here on Earth for a nanosecond, but by then it's too late, the moment has passed and you're sunk into a state of exasperated wonder at this alien you've raised.
My sweet little angel baby wouldn't have a stash. I can't hear you...la, la, la, la, la...
Shade and Sweetwater,
K (who will cop to the fact that she would totally make brownies with it if he did...but she wouldn't lie about it)
What? I'm not calling you a sadistic idiot, Jackson is.
Frost poem? I don't think Robert Frost ever wrote anything about kid geniuses smoking pot.
Wait. Did he? Shit.
I remember a phase where nothing I said came out right and I'd just get in trouble anyway because my parents thought I was shooting my mouth off. The silence was just a way of letting them get their lecture out without sassing them, on purpose or not. Neither approach works. You have to move out and then come back from genius college after you've smoked all the weed you want and then your parents are cool again.
In my experience, kids who don't use their locker are avoiding becoming a stationary target. He's in middle school. Other kids are probably all up in his shit. Especially if he's a genius.
Last night, my daughter & I are reading A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett and I read out loud "When people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to say a word--just to look at them and think. . . There is nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in-- that's stronger."
And as it left my lips, I watched her to see if the light bulb went on. If she starts stonewalling me, I'll know for sure, she is far more cunning than I!
As for weed, the kids have way more powerful pot than what I'm used to but, yeah, I'd smoke it for sure.
This hits way close to home. Thanks for making my commute bearable, bareable, something I can bear? I wish comments had spell check.
Ahh shit. That just scared the crap out of me.
I really have nothing of quality to add but it's "delurker day" or some shit so I feel obligated...
It's like Peanuts... kids just hear "wah wah wah"
My kid is also supposed to be a super-genius according to the same state's tests. And got the Prez Excellence Award. And I'm sorry, but I asked "For what?" He doesn't do his homework. Why should he? Why should he prove to everyone that he knows what he knows? He's 13 and in high school (skipped a grade.) I am trying to remind myself what normal psychological changes occur in a 13 year old. But he used to be such a giving spirit. Now he looks at me like I just asked him to paint every house on the block when I say no, do the 15 problems on your Geometry homework before you go to your friend's house.
My parents used to hate my eyeroll.
I was surely justified in them wasn't I? And surely my kid's incredulous look is unjustified?
I'd smoke his pot in front of him, then eat all his snacks. The pot for the lesson value, the snacks because 12 year old boys usually have snacks that grown men aren't allowed to buy for themselves. Like Fruit roll-ups. Imagine, no pot and your fruit roll-ups... gone. Fucking nightmare.
Good Lord I am grateful to have found this blog. I have scoured the Internet to find people who will admit this shit.
Yeah, I'd probably smoke his pot. But really, I would be doing him a favor becuase for sure he does not need that shit. He already has the 1000 yard stare and the time delay for input to hit his brain.
Also, I do the same thing with the ride! One day his dad came crying "can I take your truck, he needs a ride because it's windy." WTF? Wind? Why the hell can't you man up and say no? (We're not married anymore, btw)
My kid also tests as genius but it sure as heel is not the functional kind of genius. Not impressed.
Totally off topic, but I just found your blog via Mamapop via Amalah, and just wanted to say that I think I love you.
I would make a bunch of brownies. Put them on a plate. Sit said son and plate down at the table and explain that I had found the stash, and that I used to smoke pot and that I didn't approve of said stash, but had still chosen to bake a batch of magical desserts. Then devour the entire pan with said son.
Then make fun of him the next day for acting like a tool, for eating regular brownies. And probably for the next few weeks, actually. I'd probably tell his friends, too. I'd definitely blog about it.
And then I'd be totally confused if he was a dick to me.
I'm a parent of a 24 & 19 yo. It's been my experience that when they hit middle school the parent must be careful and not allow the nature of the parent-child relationship to become a power struggle. I talked and interacted with my daughters like they were the young adults that they were. When I vetoed something that they wanted to do they knew that they were entitled to a explanation that did not include, "because I'm the mom and I said so'. Discussion was encouraged so that everyone could explain where they were coming from as an effort for us all to least land on the same page. Were they always happy campers? No, but it taught them how to deal with conflict and disappointment in a postitive manner. It allowed them to express and validate themselves and it allowed me the opportunity to show my respect for them and their opinions.
As children mature and become individuals with the capability of discernment, they start to sift through the bullshit and tune in to their sense of who they are or want to be. They realize that they are more than how the family unit defines them. They begin to break away in order to continue their developement of being more than a son or daughter. As parents I think it's important to help nurture that departure by providing a safe place within the parent-child relationship that allows them with this process.
Kids will push the envelope to see how far they can go. As the parent it's important be aware of these "growing pains" and try to address them with compassion and respect. Is it easy? No. Sometimes you just want to ring their little necks, but by taking the high road via love, maturity and respect, the parent shows their child that they are committed to acknowledging the child's uniqueness and that the parent is an advocate for their child's individuality.
Creating resentment between your child and youself out of the need for control and ego leads to a dead end street where no one wins.
Your sons silence is a form of control and shows a lack of respect. As his parent I would address your concerns about his behavior as if he were an adult. Explain to him how your feel about being ignored and ask him why he's compelled to respond to you in that way. Showing him that you care enough to address this with him as an equal, and that you're willing to hear his feelings will hopefully give him a safe platform to be honest with you and maybe work out a deal of mutual respect.
keep being a good dad like this, and maybe someday your stoner genius child will make it a point to buy you pot. Y'know, so you don't have to get it from some kid at TGIFriday's by the mall. And you can praise said child on their joint-rolling ability.
just sayin'.
I sure hope when it's my turn to raise a teenager that I remember, "If I find drugs in your room I'm smoking/injecting/snorting them!" The vision of a high mother should keep them from doing drugs, right?
On an unrelated note, your commenting form hates my blog. www.rachelsramblings.com
I was going to talk about neighbors and fences, but someone beat me to it. And then with brownies and pot. Too many comments above mine. So, I'll go back to my roots-- Jack needs to be pulled down the street and sat in front of Vincent's house with toothpicks propping up his eyelids and the words, "See that head on the pike? That's what happens when little boys stall" whispered into his ear, even though he knows the real reason for Vincent's timely murder. We all do.